Those Three Words
by Hidden Treasures
Summary: No matter how often she came back to him, he always ended up without her.


_Please forgive me._

He pressed his lips firmly to her forehead, desperately willing her to understand. She was too precious, too special, too important to die, and die at his hands, no less. The Delta Wave was nowhere near ready, and he wouldn't be able to activate it to destroy the oncoming Dalek fleet without murdering the humans on the planet below, and the humans within the Game Station. That included Rose.

So he left her in his ship's capable hands, and he sent her home.

Of course, his beautiful, brilliant Rose came back to him, at the cost of her own life. He'd sent her away to save her, and she came back and it was killing her. Unless…

 _Please forgive me._

He brushed his lips across hers; she tasted of chips and tea and of the bitterness of Time. As soon as their lips met, he felt the spark of a psychic connection, and he gently took the power of the Vortex from her. He was willingly trading his life for hers, and he hoped she would understand, and he desperately wished she would accept the new him, whoever he became.

Just before he pulled away from her, there was a gentle pulse of assurance pressing against his consciousness. Whether it came from Rose or the TARDIS, he didn't know, but it gave him the confidence he needed to give his ship's heart back to her and allow himself to change into a new man.

 **oOoOo**

 _Please forgive me._

He willed her to understand as he leapt onto Arthur's back and shattered the mirror leading to France. Reinette needed him; she was a fixed event in history and she couldn't die just because he was infatuated like some lovesick human. History needed him, and he pushed all thoughts of Rose to the back of his mind as he left her behind for the foreseeable future.

He had a fleeting, fuzzy memory of one of his past selves traveling through France in the eighteenth century; he could hitch a ride back to Rose with himself. He tried not to dwell on the fact that it might be decades until he saw her again, decades before he could even begin to apologize for leaving her like he did.

Turns out, he only had to wait a few hours.

He ran through the empty ship until he found Rose, and he scooped her into his arms, thankful that it had only been a few hours for her, too.

Later that night, he found Rose curled up in the library under the blanket she'd claimed as hers within her first week of traveling with him. A gentle fire was crackling in the hearth and she had a book in her lap, but she was instead staring at the flames licking up the blackened wood.

He sat down beside her, relieved that she let him wrap her in his arms.

He pressed his lips to the top of her head and exhaled in gratitude when she melted into him and returned his embrace. He felt her shudder in his arms, and his shirt grew damper with every passing minute as her breathing grew ragged. His hearts dropped heavily into his stomach, and he held her tighter, hoping that if he held her long enough, she would realize how much she meant to him.

He nuzzled into her soft, human warmth, inhaling that beautiful scent of lavender and vanilla as his mind raced with how to begin explaining himself to Rose.

"Please forgive me," he whispered into her hair.

 **oOoOo**

 _Please forgive me._

He listened to his precious Rose tell her mother all the reasons she was staying behind, and all the reasons Jackie ought to go with Pete. He achingly wished he could let Rose have her way; he wished he could keep her and send Jackie and Pete off to their own universe.

But he knew he couldn't. No matter what she said and what promises she made, she wouldn't stay with him forever. She would one day die, either from the danger that seemed to plague them across the universe, or from the unyielding progression of time, or from mere boredom. This nomadic lifestyle seemed appealing to everyone at first, but after a few years, humans grew bored with it, bored of him.

Everyone always left him eventually, best to get this over with as quickly as possible, a clean break.

He had just taken a step away from Rose, having looped the dimension hopper over her neck, when she turned towards him. His knees nearly buckled from the intense look of hurt and disbelief in her eyes in the moment before she disappeared from him.

But of course his beautiful, brilliant Rose came back to him.

And of course he ended up losing her.

 **oOoOo**

 _Please forgive me._

He looked. Oh, did he look. He scoured every nook and cranny of the universe, traveling from one end to the other in a vain attempt to bring Rose back. Despite all of his efforts, he found the smallest of cracks, small enough to keep him from traveling through, but large enough for him to send her a message.

Two minutes. Over two years of traveling together, and all they got were two bloody minutes.

He schooled his features, hoping she couldn't tell how devastated he was that he couldn't come through to her.

There were so many things he wanted to say. He wanted to let her know how thankful he was for her presence. She had pulled him from his own self-destruction and had made him better than he could have ever hoped for. She had wormed her way into both of his hearts and had made an irrevocable impression upon them. His hearts were so full of emotions for this one, tiny human girl that he could barely get the words out. But she knew. She _had_ to know.

Still, sometimes it needed saying…

"Rose Tyler…"

 **oOoOo**

 _Please forgive me._

His beautiful, brilliant Rose had come back to him. Across the very dimensions that had separated them for years, she strode across them with a fierce determination, and she found him.

And while she got to keep him, he would lose her all over again.

He watched them out of the corner of his eye, his Rose and his duplicate. They were talking quietly until his other self must have said something amusing, because the TARDIS was filled with the sound of her laughter. Oh, how he had missed that sound, and yet he would never hear it again.

His double had cottoned on to the plan quickly enough, but his precious Rose hadn't, not until the words _Dårlig Ulv Stranden_ left his lips.

And even once they were there, she refused to let him off the hook so easily. She was demanding an answer from him, words he'd been bursting to say for the past three years, but words he knew he couldn't give her.

 _Please forgive me._

"Does it need saying?"

The look on her face nearly broke his resolve, and he nearly blurted out those three precious words. Nearly. But she finally turned away and towards his double, who took the opportunity gratefully and eagerly, and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

When he saw Rose's lips connect with a pair of lips that were no longer his, his hearts cracked through his chest and radiated a dull ache through his ribcage. He knew he should be happy because she would be happy, but he couldn't find it within himself to feel anything other than misery and self-loathing.

He turned away from the amorous couple, and back to his ship. The TARDIS sent him a pulse of comfort, letting him know that she would always be there for him. His ever-loyal companion.

He spared one last, long look at the pair, noticing with longing how well they fit together, before turning his back and leaving Rose Tyler behind.

 _Please forgive me._


End file.
